


watch the clock ticking off the wall

by Resamille



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU but also canonverse?, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, mentions of past shiro/keith, so obviously included: temporary main character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 00:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12971652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resamille/pseuds/Resamille
Summary: There's something about Lance that keeps Keith coming back to him.Not that he has much of a choice, seeing that, somehow, Lance always shows up in his lives.That's right.Lives.





	watch the clock ticking off the wall

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is, it's not proofread and??? chronological order?? don't know her (roman numerals label chronological order, but this is intended to be read in the order it is written)  
> also consistent tenses? h A  
> i said i'd never write in past tense ever again and yet here we are i hate everything  
> anyway take this shenanigans
> 
> title from faster car by anders lystell

vi.

“I've gathered you all here to tell you something very important.”

Keith meets Lance's eyes across the circle of unsuspecting teens, summoned by a Garrison instructor, and that's exactly why he knows this won't end well.

It never does.

 

i.

The first time Keith met Lance, it was during a simpler time.

He doesn't remember when, exactly. Certainly before the turn of the twentieth century, but beyond that, the time is lost to the haze of memories. The space between lives is spent in a void, some sort of nothingness that eats at Keith's soul. Often, many of the memories are lost to this gnawing, consuming darkness.

But sometimes they stick. Like Lance.

Keith doesn't remember the moment perfectly. But this remains:

The sun was shining, glancing off Lance's bronzed skin. There were clouds in the sky, but they were still in the blue of the atmosphere, unblinking guardians on this quiet earth. The slightest breeze shifted Lance's bangs, revealing the bluest eyes Keith had ever seen. They both stared for a moment, electric and awestruck.

And then Keith promptly punched Lance in the nose.

He doesn't remember why, now. Some rumor or other insignificant animosity.

But damn, they'd fought.

Lance played dirty—he always does—and he'd tugged on Keith's hair and bit and scratched and spit vicious words that stung against Keith's then-innocent heart. Keith tore into him in return, landing vehement kicks against Lance's ribs as they rolled on the grass and bruising his skin with hatred.

Keith remembers feeling absolutely nothing but loathing for this boy at the time.

But no, that's not quite right.

He also remembers the way Lance's skin was so soft under his harsh fingertips. He remembers the sharp intake of breath when he first saw how irrefutably gorgeous Lance was. He remembers how impressed he was: that Lance was so undeniable outmatched and still fought like he would lose everything if he backed down.

He remembers how they tired themselves out and ended up breathlessly slinging insults at each other from a good two foot distance apart where they lay, defeated by their own exhaustion, on the grass.

Keith remembers the laughter that bubbled from his chest, afterwards.

He remembers joy, anger, _connection_.

The first time. One of many.

 

ii.

The next time was years later. Many years later. A lifetime, really.

It's the early twenty-first century when Lance showed up in Keith's life.

He was a year behind Keith at university, pursuing some physics or engineering or something. They were in the same intro chem course. Lance, of course, tracked him down with a certain uncanny diligence.

Lance didn't seem to remember their first encounter. Perhaps he wasn't even aware of the reincarnations at all. That happens, sometimes, Keith has found. Shiro keeps showing up in Keith's life—or rather, lives—over and over again, completely oblivious to the whole cycle. He exists, as Keith's brother or friend or lover or mentor, all in various states of companionship, but nothing more.

Keith let Lance rope him into whatever study group thing he had going on. He let it happen, because he figured it meant nothing. Shiro would show up again and again. This would be no different. Besides, it got lonely when Shiro wasn't there, and while Keith never needed anyone else, well... Lance _was_ pretty.

If nothing else, he'd pass the time.

And Keith always had so much time to spare.

 

ix.

Lance doesn't have time.

Not this iteration.

Because if there's one thing Keith knows is constant, in all their reincarnations and cycles and lives, it's that they're _human_ , or as human as can be, seeing as apparently he's partially Galra this time. That's news to him, as is the giant lions and intergalactic war, but anyway.

Earth-born, perhaps, is more accurate.

If there's no earth, then there's no cycle.

If there's no earth, there's no Keith, no _Lance_.

Even in space, they need earth. And the Galra are taking it.

 

v.

Keith saw Lance in passing many times. Often, he would exist in Keith's life without actually being integral to it. A barista at a local coffee shop. A student on campus. An employee at a rival company. Once, a performer at a nearby gay bar. That may or may not have been one of Keith's favorites.

Always, there was something unspoken and terrifyingly unknown between them. They were drawn to each other in the same way that animals know when to store food for the winter. It was instinctual and determinedly unacknowledged.

Often, if given the opportunity, they fought. Keith isn't sure why. There's something satisfying in it, but something greater than that too, especially since Lance just keeps coming back.

As if the words and occasional fistfights can't actually do anything to them. They fight, they argue, they clash, and yet they continue to coexist.

This time, however, was different.

The Garrison's first years were rocky. Keith remembers seeing more and more of them crop up, seemingly out of no where. Two years after being enrolled, sharing his past two piloting courses with Lance, he found out why.

Earth was scared.

Something was out there. Something big.

The Garrison was created under the guise of government research.

They were put on a team. Fighter pilot, they called Keith. The word had previously never been used officially. It felt too aggressive. Too much like they were admitting they were preparing for a war they were likely to lose.

Keith didn't care.

What did it matter facing death when he was guaranteed another chance?

So he agreed. And suddenly his ambition was matched. He'd spent lifetimes pursuing anything he found remotely satisfactory, only to inevitably hate it. So much of life was useless, unfulfilling information. So much of it meant nothing.

But when he flew. When he flew like he had nothing and everything to lose in the same moment, where he chased speed and adrenaline and freedom. That's when Keith knew he'd found it. Never again would he need to learn philosophy or engineering or art. He didn't need those things. Not when he had the rush of liberation.

But with that liberation came a price.

He was the unofficial leader of a team of three: himself; Lance, his co-pilot; and Hunk, their engineer, who Keith later learned was Lance's equivalent of who Shiro was to Keith.

They'd been following up on a lead from the Garrison. Some new research suspected life on one of the outer planets. Eris was a long trip away, but it wasn't anything particularly dangerous.

At least, not until their ship malfunctioned and cut off their oxygen supply.

Lance went out in an attempt to fix it, and got crushed between a broken panel and the side of the ship. The damage had broken a few ribs, pierced his lungs. He barely made it back inside the ship.

That was the first time Lance died in Keith's arms.

 

x.

“What happens?” Lance asks quietly, knees drawn up to his chest. “If it doesn't reset?”

Keith doesn't want to answer. He doesn't want to admit it. But he does. Because part of him has always loved Lance, and this is the least he can do if he can't manage to actually confess. “I suppose we die.”

“What about the others?” Lance blinks up at him, eyelashes dusted with unshed tears. “Shiro and Hunk? And Pidge, even, if she's part of it too.”

Keith settles himself next to Lance on the bed, leaning against the wall. “I don't know,” Keith says. “I suppose they die, too.”

“Everything went so wrong,” Lance murmurs. “What if that's why we kept coming back? To keep things from getting this bad? What if we were supposed to stop this, earlier on?”

Keith presses his lips together and shrugs.

“We could have saved so many people, Keith. If only we'd known.”

“I know,” Keith says softly. He can feel Lance's gaze on him. He can't bring himself to meet it. “I know,” he says again. Except that he really, really, doesn't.

 

vii.

When Shiro showed up on one of their Garrison teams, some time after the first attempt, Keith was a mixture of distressed and ecstatic.

He told himself that it didn't matter that Lance was there, too. He wasn't a bad omen. This time, he was more aware of the cycle. There were things passed between them that extended beyond the ream of this life. Lance always seemed to remember less than Keith did. He never knew why. Lance always required some prompting on Keith's part to get back into the swing of things between them.

Sometimes it was well received, and sometimes... Sometimes, like this time, Lance hated Keith for the memory of it.

Lance had something that Keith had never experienced in full: ignorance.

 

viii.

Like all the times before, things went absolutely, horribly wrong.

They lasted longer out in the vast of the universe than previous times. Both Shiro and Hunk were on the team, so maybe that's why.

They actually found something. It wasn't the first time they did encounter other life forms, but all the other missions hadn't made it back to earth. So they kept being sent out in the next life, all over again, doomed to chase after their past lives.

Keith was shot in the chest. As this life slipped from between his lips, he felt Lance's tears fall against his cheeks.

After all the aggression, all the rivalry, all the underlying friendship.

“Don't you fucking leave me,” Lance had whispered, words jumbled as Keith dived beneath the surface into that unknowing abyss between existence. “Damn you, Keith—don't you—”

 

xi.

“This is it, Paladins,” Allura says.

Lance meets Keith's gaze, through the holographic map.

His gaze is heavy with too much knowledge.

So many times, they've failed before. Why is this any different? The Alteans? The lions?

This is the end.

 _This is the end_.

Keith feels fear stab sharply through his heart. It's new—the terror of dying.

A life unfulfilled is no life at all, and Keith tastes the sting of abject horror on his tongue. So many lives, leading up to this. So long, and they never truly fucking did _anything_.

Allura's still talking and none of it sticks. Keith is breaking ranks—something the Blades might have thought they'd gotten out of him—and storming towards Lance.

Lance blinks at him for a moment. He seems prepared to take a punch. Just like the first time, so, so long ago.

“Keith,” Shiro starts, but it doesn't matter.

“Keith,” Lance chokes out in a scared whisper, and suddenly everything hinges on that single moment.

“I like you,” Keith blurts, because for all the lifetimes he's lived, eloquence has never been his strong point. “Wait. No.”

Lance stares at him, mouth open in quiet shock.

Keith's body thrums with some new excitement, some sort of exhilaration dependent purely upon laying his emotions bare. “Damn it. I'm not going to die for good without saying it: I love you. I've loved you for so fucking long, Lance. Probably since the first time we met on that soccer field and I punched you for some stupid reason.”

 

iv.

The beat of his heart in his chest was unnaturally quick. Keith was no stranger to affection. He lived for ages, for God's sake, but this felt different. It terrified him.

Almost entirely because, he realized, Lance was the object of his affection.

All the others had remained ignorant. He could spend a lifetime with them and it would never matter. His love was finite in the span of time.

But Lance was part of the cycle now. He was connected to Keith, and they relied on each other in ways that were often obscured by shadow, though the effects were felt.

So to ruin what he had with Lance—was to ruin everything.

Keith vowed, watching Lance make his coffee for the morning as another insignificant part of Keith's life, that he would never tell him. Because if it went wrong, Keith couldn't just wait for the next one to come along, the next reincarnation and next person.

His heart clenched painfully, constricted by the weight of knowledge and fear and love.

“Your coffee,” Lance said, smiling slyly.

“Thanks,” Keith murmured. He reached for the cup only to realize that there was something written on the sleeve.

A phone number. Lance's no doubt.

Keith swallowed hard. He ignored Lance's wink. He made sure to make a show of throwing away the coffee sleeve as he left.

He didn't go back there. Lance didn't show up in that life any more. Keith's chest felt hollow.

 

xii.

“Oh,” Lance breathes out, finally. “Holy shit—oh, _fuck_.”

Lance's fingers are clumsy as they bring Keith close, thumb digging a bit too harshly into Keith's cheekbone.

His lips, though, are soft.

Something in Keith clicks into place. Something in him says: _be happy with just this; there might not be another chance_.

So Keith presses close, and his fingers go numb with the force with which he clutches to Lance's jacket. That stupid jacket—another on-off companion, like Hunk. Like Keith's knife.

Their teeth hit against each other and they ignore it in favor of being close, in favor of finality.

Pidge's _whoop!_ breaks them apart.

“I hate you,” Lance says, as soon as he can breathe again. “For making me wait so long. Do you know how many times I've expected you to confess on your deathbed? Do you know how many times I've _held you_ as you died? Too fucking many, Keith! Too fucking many to be uncertain about whether or not you loved me, but you never _said_ anything, and I never know with you, and I couldn't—”

“You doubted,” Keith supplies, because he knows Lance. Of course, he knows Lance.

“Yes!” Lance screeches, right in Keith's face, and maybe punching him would have been the better course of action after all. “And that time in New York, I could have _sworn_ you were going to say something but then you just... didn't! I was so pissed.”

Keith finds himself chuckling. “You remember that one?”

“Hell, yeah! I'm still angry about it.”

“I'm pretty sure I was technically married that time,” Keith muses. “Probably not a good plan to confess to you after taking vows to someone else.”

“Do I look like I care?” Lance huffs.

“That someone else might have been Shiro. I really don't remember.”

“What now?” Shiro deadpans.

Lance ignores him entirely. “You're mine,” he tells Keith. “You're mine and you're going to be mine for the rest of our lives and however many we have left after that.”

“And if this is the last one?”

“Then we better damn well make the most of it.”

 

iii.

Keith never told anyone except Lance about their reoccurring fate. He'd tested it once on Shiro, but Shiro never remembered. Lance retained pieces. And Lance, after the first time, was always there.

Keith doesn't know why. Or how.

All he knows is that there's some meaning behind it that he doesn't know how to find.

Except maybe now, he knows it's been lodged in his chest since the start.

 

xiii.

“I've gathered you all here to tell you something very important.”

Keith meets Lance's eyes across the circle of unsuspecting teens, themselves included, summoned by a Garrison instructor, and that's exactly why he knows this won't end well.

It never does.

“You've been selected as the next special group to follow in Voltron's footsteps,” the instructor continues. “A hundred years ago, the Voltron Paladins saved the universe from the ongoing reign of the Galra—”

“Excuse me,” Lance interrupts, like the little shit he is. He's already done this once. He knows it doesn't go over well, and does it anyway. “First of all, it was ninety-six years ago, I was _there_ , and secondly, _I was there_ , so can I skip this part?”

“What,” the instructor deadpans. “I'm sorry?”

“Well, you see,” Lance begins his story, complete with horribly exaggerated reactments.

Keith tries to hide his smile as he watches.

Lance meets Keith's gaze, smiles, and then ducks away from the instructor trying to slap their hand over Lance's mouth.

It won't be the last time.


End file.
